Kolomoisky was never keen on philanthropy. Unlike, for example, Pinchuk, who considers himself a patron of the arts, or Akhmetov, whose TV channel often liked to recall how Rinat Leonidovich helps the residents of Donbas. True, for some time, Kolomoisky financed the football team “Dnipro,” which hardly brought any profit. But this cannot be called charity. For oligarchs, owning their football club is like having a three-deck yacht off the coast of Sardinia. An expensive toy.
The money and resources that Kolomoisky spent on Zelensky’s victory were not charitable aid. It was an investment. Just two weeks after the inauguration, Zelensky began to repay the oligarch for his support in the election. And not with his own, but with state funds.
In early June 2019, the State Property Fund changed the composition of the supervisory board of “Centrenergo.” This state company is known for generating about 8% of all electricity in Ukraine, owning three thermal power plants: Uglegorsk, Zmiyiv, and Trypilska. On June 26, the new supervisory board of “Centrenergo” changes its director. The new head, Volodymyr Potapenko, almost immediately after appointment, signs direct contracts for the sale of electricity to Ihor Kolomoisky’s companies. Electricity was sold at prices significantly below market rates. At the same time, the new director ignored more favorable offers from other buyers.
As a result of such strange management, the state company “Centrenergo” missed out on 700 million hryvnias ($28 million) in less than four months. By the end of 2019, the net loss of “Centrenergo” exceeded 2 billion hryvnias ($80 million). Although in 2018 and the year before, this company consistently showed good profit.
At this point, someone might ask: “What about the government? Why did it allow the state company to be robbed?” To answer these questions, we need to remember whom Volodymyr Zelensky appointed as Prime Minister. This person became 35-year-old Oleksiy Honcharuk — the youngest head of government in the history of Ukraine (the previous record was held by 40-year-old Arseniy Yatsenyuk).
Before his appointment to the country’s second most important position, Honcharuk had no experience in managing in the public sector or private business. He had never held an elected position. Formally, since 2007, Oleksiy Honcharuk was considered a lawyer and headed several public organizations. But in 2012, he earned money by participating as an extra in Andriy Palchevsky’s TV show. There’s still a YouTube video where you can see Honcharuk as an audience member in the studio.
Being an extra is one of the least paid jobs in Kyiv, only agreed to by poor students, the unemployed, and pensioners. At that time, it paid 100-200 hryvnias (4-8 dollars) per day. For this money, a person had to sit for 8 or even 10 hours and clap on command. The “lawyer” and “public activist” Honcharuk worked as an extra.
And it was precisely this inexperienced individual whom Zelensky decided to entrust with Ukraine’s economy. It is now clear that this appointment occurred only because Kolomoisky’s group needed a Prime Minister who would sign the necessary documents without any questions and could easily be blamed for all the problems later.
That’s exactly what happened. By the end of 2019, the hole in Ukraine’s state budget grew to 120 billion hryvnias, 30 billion more than stipulated by the budget law. The state did not receive almost 37 billion planned revenues from customs and taxes. The budget was fulfilled only thanks to internal borrowing at high interest rates.
In 2019, the Ministry of Finance sold government bonds worth 227 billion hryvnias (over $9 billion), 249.4% more than in 2018. The average borrowing interest rate was 16.9% per annum. In addition, $4.331 billion (+24.5% compared to 2018) and 387 million euros were borrowed. In just six months, Zelensky and his “new faces” destroyed the stable economic growth left by Poroshenko and began living in debt. Over 4.5 years of Zelensky’s rule, Ukraine’s state debt increased from $80 billion to $145 billion.
Oleksiy Honcharuk was a dilettante but not an idiot. He understood what was happening around “Centrenergo” and that he could be blamed for this theft someday. On February 26, 2020, the Cabinet of Ministers under Honcharuk decided to replace the leadership of “Centrenergo” and prepare it for privatization.
Two days later, on February 28, the Prime Minister was summoned by the President. According to sources from the “Dzerkalo Tyzhnia,” during this conversation, Zelensky stated that Kolomoisky was extremely dissatisfied with the replacement of the head of “Centrenergo.” That same evening, the head of Zelensky’s “Servant of the People” faction, David Arakhamia, informed the press that personnel decisions were planned in the government. The story ended with Honcharuk being dismissed from the position of Prime Minister of Ukraine “at his own request” on March 4, a week after crossing Kolomoisky.
After his resignation, Oleksiy Honcharuk disappeared from public politics and left for the USA for almost two years. In early 2022, two months after the war began, he returned to Ukraine. In 2023, the former prime minister announced that he heads the supervisory board of the public organization “Aerorozvidka,” which designs drones for the army.